Safety Unit Broadens Its Scrutiny of a Ford Recall

A week after the nation’s top auto regulator warned automakers that he would be more vigilant on safety, his agency has taken the unusual move of revisiting the 2013 recall of Ford’s biggest pickup trucks.

The original recall, to fix a stalling problem, was limited to almost 3,000 trucks used as ambulances. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, citing 30 complaints from drivers it had received on its website, has told Ford that it is now investigating whether that recall should be vastly expanded, to include nearly 197,000 additional pickups that have similar engines but are not used as ambulances, according to a report made public recently on the agency’s website.

A day later, the Ford investigation — called a “recall query” — was opened. While the agency initiates dozens of investigations into possible safety problems each year, recall queries are unusual. There were only four last year, about 6 percent of the total investigations started in that period, according to a New York Times review of federal data.

The agency has fallen under intense criticism from congressional lawmakers, who five times last year called Mr. Rosekind’s predecessor to testify about safety issues. In September, a Times investigation found that the agency had often been slow to identify and act on safety problems and hesitant to employ its full legal powers against automakers.

The scrutiny began last February with G.M.’s recall of Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars with defective ignition systems. The keys could suddenly turn off, disabling airbags as well as power to the steering and brakes. The defect, which went undisclosed for more than a decade, has been linked to at least 49 deaths and dozens of injuries.

In the case of the Cobalt ignition, consumer complaints could have provided a crucial clue to identifying the defect. The safety agency’s website received more than 260 complaints from drivers about those cars suddenly shutting off, an analysis by The New York Times found last year, but the agency never started a broader investigation.

But recently, the agency has shown signs of taking more aggressive action against automakers, including a record $70 million penalty against Honda Motor this month for failing to report more than 1,729 injury or death claims, and other warranty filings, with the safety agency.

And Mr. Rosekind, who previously served on the National Transportation Safety Board, told senators at his confirmation hearing in December that he wanted to put a greater focus on examining consumer complaints to identify potential defects.

The complaints, he said, have jumped to 75,000 a year from about 45,000, requiring more tools and resources to examine them. “We’re not even talking about connecting the dots, we’re just talking about the overload of having that many,” he said.

The agency, he said, could learn from other industries that have systems for spotting problems among masses of data. He added that he wanted more analysts to examine complaints.

When asked about the Ford recall query, Gordon Trowbridge, an agency spokesman, referred to Mr. Rosekind’s previous comment “that N.H.T.S.A. will use every tool available to pursue its safety mission.”

The vehicles at the center of the agency’s new inquiry are Ford’s biggest pickup trucks from the 2011 and 2012 model years — the F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550, with 6.7-liter V8 diesel engines — which can be converted to ambulances. In some cases, the agency said, the recall, which was to fix a faulty sensor, had been performed.

In the investigation, the 30 consumer complaints cited by the agency told a story of drivers coping with a sudden loss in power while driving.

One of the complaints from drivers came last March from the crew of an ambulance saying that the vehicle stalled as it arrived at its destination, requiring another ambulance to be dispatched.

“Had this vehicle been on the highway at the time it would have been a very dangerous situation,” the complaint said.

There were also unhappy owners of pickups who complained that while ambulances with the same engines were recalled, their vehicles were not.

“This is the third time that my truck has left me on the side of the road,” one owner wrote the agency in December. “Ford had a recall of all 2012 ambulance F-350s because of this exact situation” but is leaving consumers “to worry with it on their own.”

And some owners told the safety agency the size of the pickups, often used to tow large trailers, made the situation particularly dangerous because “it will be impossible for everyone to safely get out of traffic before the truck simply stops.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Safety Unit Broadens Its Scrutiny of a Recall. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe